"Kris (Aquino) explained, as if to an entire country made up of retarded children, that her brother could not have just hopped on a plane because a President “is not like you and me [who can just] hop on a plane… And because his spokesmen and apologists are really nincompoops often engaged in the Sisyphean defense of the indefensible, he will need better help in the propaganda department..."
The trucks bearing relief sent in by television network ABS-CBN had already arrived at mud slide-ravaged Consolacion village in Cagayan de Oro City. The flood-stricken residents, some of them still with mud on their bodies, had already lined up to receive the much-needed aid.
Suddenly, the trucks started up and began to move away. They had been ordered not to commence the distribution of relief goods and return to Balulang village instead.
There, they had to pick up a very important person—presidential sister Kris Aquino. The actress had told the network’s bosses that she wanted to be in Consolacion when the aid-giving (and the viedo recording of the event, naturally) started.
The assembled people didn’t know this, of course; all they saw were the trucks leaving. And they could only wait until the aid-bearing vehicles returned, with Kris in tow.
As Kris herself said, in defense of her brother’s partying right after the killer mudslides and floods hit, we can’t allow life to stop and just sulk in a corner. Of course, not: there remains the publicity to be had in the midst of the suffering of the people.
Had Ninoy and Cory Aquino been alive today, they would probably have been pressed into service, as well. Then again, if they were still living, we probably would have been spared the election to the presidency of their son.
The criticism lobbed by citizens aghast by reports of President Noynoy Aquino partying like a palace rock star the night after floods devastated Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities must have really stung. That’s because Aquino did not only try to control the ensuing damage by employing the talents of his usual defenders in the form of his various palace propaganda offices, his apologists in media and his regular jukeboxes in Congress.
Aquino called in his sisters. Three of them—Ballsy Aquino-Cruz, Pinky Aquino Abellada and Kris—put on the defense on national television that Aquino could not possibly have postponed the Christmas party of the Presidential Security Group because it had been scheduled long in advance.
Life must go on, they said. And yes, the President could not have immediately flown to Cagayan de Oro because he did not want to hamper rescue and relief operations there.
Kris explained, as if to an entire country made up of retarded children, that her brother could not have just hopped on a plane because a President “is not like you and me [who can just] hop on a plane... there are a lot of national concerns.”
(Of course, Vice President Jejomar Binay, who went to the affected areas hours after they were first reported, apparently had no ability to hamper the rescue efforts and doesn’t have enough national concerns to keep him in Manila. Besides, Binay didn’t really have to be at a party that he could not reschedule or miss.)
But perhaps people shouldn’t really begrudge Aquino for asking his sibling to join the campaign to reverse the bad publicity the party-going President has been receiving since the flooding. His official spokesmen, after all, have been doing their best to make things worse for Aquino ever since the details of the party were disclosed by the imprudent tweets of actress Valerie Concepcion.
Since the Concepcion disclosures, Malacañang flacks have declared that the PSG party actually took place on Dec. 10 instead of just last Saturday, have given various durations, computed based on the average length of the songs Concepcion actually sung, that the President actually stayed at the party (anywhere from five minutes to 30 minutes) and have even sworn that Aquino did not take to the stage and sing his personal slacker’s anthem “Estudyante Blues.” You’d run to your sisters too, if this was all the help you could muster by way of damage control.
In the meantime, Aquino reversed an earlier announcement that he was planning to visit the devastated areas after Christmas and went directly to Cagayan de Oro yesterday. (While there, he could not resist the opportunity to tell people living in the hazardous Isla de Oro neighborhood that they should not have stayed there, if they didn’t want to suffer flooding.)
And, as if to prove that there was really no party that he did not have the power to cancel, despite what his sisters said, Aquino also said that his Cabinet will not be having its annual Christmas get-together this year. He also declared a state of national calamity—a full four days after disaster struck and even if the damage is confined only to a small area of Northern Mindanao.
And so, for those who watch the Aquino administration, some things have now apparently become clear: the President will skip parties, but only if he has been shamed into doing so because of a calamity. He can actually be convinced to visit a disaster area, not weeks after the fact like in Cotabato City and Central Luzon, but mere days afterwards.
And because his spokesmen and apologists are really nincompoops often engaged in the Sisyphean defense of the indefensible, he will need better help in the propaganda department. And if he has to ask his sisters to do that, then, that’s exactly what he will do…
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